Majority of Scottish care services are making the grade

The Care Commission has revealed the findings of its first year of graded results for care services, providing the first benchmark of the quality of care provision in Scotland.

A new report, called Making the Grade?, shows that the majority of care services in Scotland are providing good quality of care for people who use care services, while only a small minority are performing below acceptable standards.

The grading results were collated from more than 11,000 inspections carried out by the Care Commission during its first year of grading between April 2008 and March 2009. Under the grading scheme, every service is awarded a grade of 1-6 across various different aspects of care – or “quality themes” – including Quality of care and support; Quality of information/environment; Quality of staffing; and Quality of management and leadership
 
The data from the first year shows that 80% of all care services across the country achieved grades of 4 (good), 5 (very good) or 6 (excellent) in each quality theme. In addition, just over 98% of care services scored grades of 3 (adequate) or higher across all quality themes.

Ronnie Hill, Director with lead responsibility for inspection activity, said: “The grading system   provides people in care and their families with better information – and therefore more choice and involvement – about the standards of care provided at every care service in Scotland. 

“It is so important that people who use services and families understand that they can play a major role in insisting on and driving forward improvements in care standards.

“The Making the Grade? report gives a baseline against which we will be able to compare future grading results. We will be able to check whether the good quality of care provided by most services has been maintained, where the quality of care in Scotland is improving and where further action is needed to ensure that improvement is made.

“Grading gives everyone ‘at a glance’ information about whether a service is performing well or not. It means that good providers are getting the recognition they deserve and those who need to do better are under intense pressure to improve.  To get good grades, services have to show that the children and adults who use the services have good outcomes, are well cared for, supported and protected.

“Our approach to scrutiny is more proportionate, risk-based and targeted than ever and we continue to be tough on poor performance.  That includes working closely with services with poor grades to ensure they improve.

“We are heartened to report that, overall, the vast majority of services achieved grades of 4 or above. However, a small minority of services had grades of 1 (unsatisfactory) or 2 (weak). We will continue to focus on these services and demand improvements so that every person who uses a care service in Scotland gets the quality of care set out in the National Care Standards.

“We hope this first full year report will prove useful information for all those with an interest in care and will help to drive up the quality of Scotland’s care services.”

Between April 2008 and March 2009, 71% of the 14,545 care services registered with the Care Commission in Scotland were given a graded inspection (not all care services are required to be inspected each year).

The results show that 25% of all services were awarded grades of 5s and 6s for every quality theme – while 1.2% of care services were awarded grades of 1s and 2s (a total of 125 services).

A total of 3449 services for adults received graded inspections – with housing support services and support services offering care at home achieved the highest proportion of grades 5 and 6 out of all the care services for adults.

While many care homes for older people have good grades, this sector has the most room for improvement with nearly one in ten of services achieving grades of 1s or 2s for quality of care and support. A total of 28 care homes for older people (3.1%) achieved grades of 1s and 2s across all quality themes. 

A total of 6881 children’s services were graded and, overall, the majority of these services achieved good grades. Around 98% of children’s services received grades of 3 or better for quality of care and support, while 88% received grades of 4 or better.

One in three childminding services – 1395 in total – achieved grades of 5s and 6s across all quality themes, while 25% of children’s daycare services also achieved the top grades.

The report also breaks down grading information to allow comparisons across service groups, types, local authority, private and voluntary sectors and local authority areas.

For adult services, the private sector has the highest proportion of services receiving poor grades while the voluntary sector has highest proportion of services with high grades.  Fife achieved the highest percentage (40%) of services with 5/6 grades; while 4.5% of services in Argyll & Bute had achieved all 1 and 2 grades (the highest proportion).

Ronnie Hill added: “Involving people who use care services and their carers lies at the heart of effective care delivery and acts as a catalyst for service improvement and better outcomes.

“Indeed, early evaluation of the 2009-10 grading results indicates that the majority of those poorly performing services in 2008-09 have achieved higher grades in the next inspection year.”

The Making the Grade? report and all inspection reports on individual services, including the grades awarded to them, can be download at http://www.carecommission.com